Guest Op-Ed - Bishop Schneider: The interpretation of Vatican II and its connection with the current crisis of the Church
Once again, we are
honored to post this guest op-ed, submitted to us by His Excellency Bishop
Athanasius Schneider. We not only allow but encourage all media and blogs to
reprint this as well.
OK, I am delighted to do this, as I wrote a book in support of what His Excellency wishes:
(From the Amazon page): "Taking as his point of departure Pope Paul VI’s observation that seven years following the close of the Second Vatican Council conditions in the Church were such that it was as if “the Smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God,” the author recounts how it was that the misimplementation of the council’s documents resulted in the emergence of what Henri De Lubac termed “a different Church from that of Jesus Christ,” all under the guide of updating (aggiornamento) and renewal. Pope Paul was of the mind that by 1972 the greatest need in the Church was to be defended against the adversary power of darkness, the Devil. For the Pope the unmistakable signs of the Evil One’s penetration of the Church were a vast undermining of Catholic moral teaching (particularly sexual morality), the ideological seduction of fashionable theological errors (particularly neomodernism) which spawned doctrinal uncertainty, a radical denial of God, and the watering down of and even rejection of the spirit of the Gospel.
This was the net result of the misimplementation of the Council, for whicH I advised all Catholics to READ THE DOCUMENTS OF VATICAN II FOR THEMSELVES.
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By Bishop Athanasius Schneider
Special to Rorate Caeli
July 21, 2017
The interpretation of Vatican
II and its connection with the current crisis of the Church
The current situation
of the unprecedented crisis of the Church is comparable with the general crisis
in the 4th century, when the Arianism had contaminated
the overwhelming majority of the episcopacy, taking a dominant position in the
life of the Church. We must seek to address this current situation on the one
hand with realism and, on the other hand, with a supernatural spirit – with a
profound love for the Church, our mother, who is suffering the Passion of
Christ because of this tremendous and general doctrinal, liturgical and
pastoral confusion.
We must renew our
faith in believing that the Church is in the safe hands of Christ, and that He
will always intervene to renew the Church in the moments in which the boat of
the Church seems to capsize, as is the obvious case in our days.
As to the attitude
towards the Second Vatican Council, we must avoid two extremes: a complete
rejection (as do the sedevacantists and a part of the Society of St. Pius X
(SSPX) or a “infallibilization” of everything the council spoke.
Vatican II was a
legitimate assembly presided by the Popes and we must maintain towards this council
a respectful attitude. Nevertheless, this does not mean that we are forbidden
to express well-founded doubts or respectful improvement suggestions regarding
some specific items, while doing so based on the entire tradition of the Church
and on the constant Magisterium.
Traditional and
constant doctrinal statements of the Magisterium during a centuries-old period
have precedence and constitute a criterion of verification regarding the
exactness of posterior magisterial statements. New statements of the
Magisterium must, in principle, be more exact and clearer, but should never be
ambiguous and apparently contrast with previous magisterial statements.
Those statements of
Vatican II which are ambiguous must be read and interpreted according to the
statements of the entire Tradition and of the constant Magisterium of the
Church.
In case of doubt the
statements of the constant Magisterium (the previous councils and the documents
of the Popes, whose content demonstrates being a sure and repeated tradition
during centuries in the same sense) prevail over those objectively ambiguous or
new statements of the Vatican II, which difficultly concord with specific
statements of the constant and previous Magisterium (e.g. the duty of the state
to venerate publicly Christ, the King of all human societies, the true sense of
the episcopal collegiality in relation to the Petrine primacy and the universal
government of the Church, the noxiousness of all non-Catholic religions and
their dangerousness for the eternal salvation of the souls).
Vatican II must be
seen and received as it is and as it was really: a primarily pastoral council.
This council had not the intention to propose new doctrines or to propose them
in a definitive form. In its statements the council confirmed largely the
traditional and constant doctrine of the Church.
Some of the new
statements of Vatican II (e.g. collegiality, religious liberty, ecumenical and
inter-religious dialogue, the attitude towards the world) have not a definitive
character, and being apparently or truly non-concordant with the traditional
and constant statements of the Magisterium, they must be complemented by more
exact explications and by more precise supplements of a doctrinal character. A
blind application of the principle of the “hermeneutics of continuity” does not
help either, since thereby are created forced interpretations, which are not
convincing and which are not helpful to arrive at a clearer understanding of
the immutable truths of the Catholic faith and of its concrete application.
There have been cases
in the history, where non-definitive statements of certain ecumenical councils
were later – thanks to a serene theological debate – refined or tacitly
corrected (e.g. the statements of the Council of Florence regarding the matter
of the sacrament of Orders, i.e. that the matter were the handing-over of the
instruments, whereas the more sure and constant tradition said that the
imposition of the hands of the bishop were sufficient, a truth, which was
ultimately confirmed by Pius XII in 1947). If after the Council of Florence the
theologians would have blindly applied the principle of the “hermeneutics of
the continuity” to this concrete statement of the Council of Florence (an
objectively erroneous statement), defending the thesis that the handing-over of
the instruments as the matter of the sacrament of Orders would concord with the
constant Magisterium, probably there would not have been achieved the general
consensus of the theologians regarding the truth which says that only the
imposition of the hands of the bishop is the real matter of the sacrament of
Orders.
There must be created
in the Church a serene climate of a doctrinal discussion regarding those
statements of Vatican II which are ambiguous or which have caused erroneous
interpretations. In such a doctrinal discussion there is nothing scandalous,
but on the contrary, it will be a contribution in order to maintain and explain
in a more sure and integral manner the deposit of the immutable faith of the
Church.
One must not
highlight so much a certain council, absolutizing it or equating it in
fact with the oral (Sacred Tradition) or written (Sacred Scripture) Word of
God. Vatican II itself said rightly (cf. Verbum Dei, 10),
that the Magisterium (Pope, Councils, ordinary and universal Magisterium) is
not above the Word of God, but beneath it, subject to it, and being only the
servant of it (of the oral Word of God = Sacred Tradition and of the written
Word of God = Sacred Scripture).
From an objective
point of view, the statements of the Magisterium (Popes and councils) of
definitive character, have more value and more weight compared with the
statements of pastoral character, which have naturally a changeable and
temporary quality depending on historical circumstances or responding to
pastoral situations of a certain period of time, as it is the case with the
major part of the statements of Vatican II.
The original and
valuable contribution of the Vatican II consists in the universal call to
holiness of all members of the Church (chap. 5 of Lumen gentium), in the doctrine about the central role
of Our Lady in the life of the Church (chap. 8 of Lumen gentium), in the importance of the lay faithful
in maintaining, defending and promoting the Catholic faith and in their duty to
evangelize and sanctify the temporal realities according to the perennial sense
of the Church (chap. 4 of Lumen gentium), in
the primacy of the adoration of God in the life of the Church and in the
celebration of the liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium,
nn. 2; 5-10). The rest one can consider to a certain extent secondary,
temporary and, in the future, probably forgettable, as it was the case with
some non-definitive, pastoral and disciplinary statements of various ecumenical
councils in the past.
The following issues
– Our Lady, sanctification of the personal life of the faithful with the
sanctification of the world according to the perennial sense of the Church and
the primacy of the adoration of God – are the most urgent aspects which have to
be lived in our days. Therein Vatican II has a prophetical role which,
unfortunately, is not yet realized in a satisfactory manner.
Instead of living
these four aspects, a considerable part of the theological and administrative
“nomenclature” in the life of the Church promoted for the past 50 years and
still promotes ambiguous doctrinal, pastoral and liturgical issues, distorting
thereby the original intention of the Council or abusing its less clear or
ambiguous doctrinal statements in order to create another church – a church of
a relativistic or Protestant type.
In our days, we are
experiencing the culmination of this development.
The problem of the
current crisis of the Church consists partly in the fact that some statements
of Vatican II – which are objectively ambiguous or those few statements, which
are difficultly concordant with the constant magisterial tradition of the
Church – have been infallibilisized. In this way, a healthy debate with a
necessarily implicit or tacit correction was blocked.
At the same time
there was given the incentive in creating theological affirmations in contrast
with the perennial tradition (e.g. regarding the new theory of an ordinary
double supreme subject of the government of the Church, i.e. the Pope alone and
the entire episcopal college together with the Pope, the doctrine of the
neutrality of the state towards the public worship, which it must pay to the
true God, who is Jesus Christ, the King also of each human and political
society, the relativizing of the truth that the Catholic Church is the unique
way of salvation, wanted and commanded by God).
We must free
ourselves from the chains of the absolutization and of the total
infallibilization of Vatican II. We must ask for a climate of a serene and
respectful debate out of a sincere love for the Church and for the immutable
faith of the Church.
We can see a positive
indication in the fact that on August 2, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a
preface to the volume regarding Vatican II in the edition of his Opera omnia. In this preface, Benedict XVI expresses
his reservations regarding specific content in the documents Gaudium et spes and Nostra aetate. From the tenor of these words of
Benedict XVI one can see that concrete defects in certain sections of the
documents are not improvable by the “hermeneutics of the continuity.”
An SSPX, canonically
and fully integrated in the life of the Church, could also give a valuable
contribution in this debate – as Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre desired. The fully
canonical presence of the SSPX in the life of the Church of our days could also
help to create a general climate of constructive debate, in order that
that, which was believed always, everywhere and by all Catholics for 2,000
years, would be believed in a more clear and in a more sure manner in our days
as well, realizing thereby the true pastoral intention of the Fathers of the Second Vatican
Council.
The authentic
pastoral intention aims towards the eternal salvation of the souls -- a
salvation which will be achieved only through the proclamation of the entire
will of God (cf. Act 20: 7). The ambiguity in the doctrine of the faith and in
its concrete application (in the liturgy and in the pastoral life) would menace
the eternal salvation of the souls and would be consequently anti-pastoral,
since the proclamation of the clarity and of the integrity of the Catholic
faith and of its faithful concrete application is the explicit will of God.
Only the perfect
obedience to the will of God -- Who revealed us through Christ the Incarnate
Word and through the Apostles the true faith, the faith interpreted and
practiced constantly in the same sense by the Magisterium of the Church – will
bring the salvation of souls.
+ Athanasius
Schneider,
Auxiliary Bishop of
the Archdiocese of Maria Santissima in Astana, Kazakhstan
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